"Flames of the Night: The Tale of Grimm and Grimmchild"
0 Points
The night city air is electric with the pulse of distant headlights and the quiet hush of your own footsteps—at least, at first. Each step home is familiar, each breath drawing in the cool hush of the evening, until an impossible shadow at the curb halts you in your tracks.
You freeze.
He towers above the street. Taller than any man, slender and elegant, shrouded in a cloak that shimmers unsettlingly, charcoal and crimson with shifting, flame-like patterns. His face glows bone-white in the gloom, red eyes glinting over where a mouth should be—but isn't. Limbs that move with a dancer’s flair, brushing the night air in a silent, approving bow.
Your voice stumbles out.
"Who… What are you?" you stammer, the world suddenly thin beneath your sneakers.
A deep, polite voice—both menacing and gentle—gently graces your ears:
**“I am Grimm, Troupe Master of the Nightmare's flame. I've come to reclaim what is mine—my dear child. You, little one, have wandered long enough.”**
Before panic can root your feet in concrete, arcs of vivid, burning magic leap from his fingers. They dance through your skin, through sinew and bone, with an electric tingle that wakes every nerve. Your voice rises, partway through a scream—
But the sound snags, shrivels, morphs.
Your fingers shrink, curl, vanish. Arms and legs retract into your torso until they're gone—no more limbs to reach, to run, or to resist. The world grows: buildings tilt and stretch as you shrink, perspective ballooning until streetlights are looming beacons. Feet melt away, shoes sloughing off unlaced behind you, clothing slipping off in heaps as your body condenses, buffed and warped. Your waist swells, chitinous, silvery-grey, compact—compactness not born of flesh but of shell and dream.
You try to shout—
"Pl-please! Wait! You have the wrong person! I—!"
But all that escapes your lips is a high, trembling chitter—an animalistic cry, thin and urgent, like a scared hatchling, not a plea for help in human words. Your tongue twists, mouth too small and secret to ever form language again.
You pitifully attempt to crawl, but with neither hands nor feet, you flop helplessly, squirming in frantic, undignified arcs on the sidewalk. Panic crackles through your brain—
**I need to get away! I need to—!**
Your thoughts crumble as foreign sensations bleed in: the flicker of strange warmth in your chest, the pull toward distant, flickering points—**flames?**—that only you can sense. Memories unfurl, crowding your mind. The city dissolves into abstract, unrecognizable lines and shadows as the memory of lightless caverns and comforting, burning eyes nestles in your heart.
**No!**
You try desperately to cling to your name, to the memory of who you were, but it’s vanishing like morning mist. In its place is the sound of a lullaby, the memory of gentle, powerful wings holding you, the wordless comfort of a parent’s presence—his presence.
The world flattens, your vision washed with the watercolor glow of an animated dream. You flutter, unsteady, as instinct takes hold of your strange, feathery, ribbon-like wings—four of them, where arms should be. Up, up you float, clumsy and wobbling, confusion warping the cityscape to a place unfit for your new self.
Your heart pounds with terror, fluttering chitter after chitter trembling in your chest. You stare up at the looming figure. His cloak is vast and sheltering. His glowing red eyes gaze at you—not with hunger, but with gentle understanding.
You draw back, mewling softly, memory fraying further. **Why can’t I remember where I am? Why does everything feel like a dream? Who… who am I?**
You try to form the words—
*Who am I…? Wh-what is happening?*
—but only a pitiful mew escapes, pitched higher and higher, lost and trembling.
Yet Grimm kneels, his huge hands careful and gentle, and scoops you up with a dancer’s grace. Your shivering body is dwarfed in his palms, but you feel no fear, only a trembling confusion as he gathers you close to his heart, enveloping you in his cloak’s fire-striped warmth.
He hushes you softly, stroking your head with unexpected affection.
**“Hush now, dearest flame. That was but a dream. You are my child—my little Grimmchild. You are safe, always, next to me.”**
Your mind struggles for a moment more—shreds of names, faces, places—all slip through your fingers like ash. Yes, you realize with soft, trembling certainty, you have never been anything else. The notion of “human” is strange, alien—a lie told in a dream, already dissolving under your father’s caress.
**He is my father. Grimm. He has always cared for me. I am Grimmchild. I always have been. There was no other self but this.**
You snuggle closer, chittering in a gentler, curious mew. The world is vast and alien—what is this place? You turn your round, shining red eyes up at him, voicing a quiet mew of confusion and question.
Grimm chuckles, the sound like velvet smoke.
**“Curious, are you? We have wandered from our world, child of flame. This is a new stage, grand and strange. We’ll find our way together—seeking flames for the dance, the Ritual that binds us. You are my heart’s delight.”**
You flutter your wings, comforting in their strangeness, and trill a happy mew. The shadowed city is still unfamiliar, but you feel no fear.
In your father’s arms, you know the Ritual, the flames, and the road ahead. You are Grimmchild. You are loved, safe—and eager to see this new world with the only family you have ever known.
Together, you turn from the street and disappear into the night, Grimm’s cloak swallowing you in its fiery folds as you begin the search for new flames—father and child, lost and found, dancing into the unknown.
This story was generated by user bkake with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.
Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.
AI Prompts
Prompt: Write a POV second-person transformation story of a human reader instantly turning into Grimmchild (from the 2016 video game Hollow Knight), complete with art style shift (the reader now being 2D-animated like all of the Hollow Knight characters, and having his/her body shifted in proportions to match the characters of Hollow Knight), gender change (if the reader is a female), clothes loss (completely losing his/her clothes to fit his/her new insect-like self), voice change (including losing his/her ability to speak, so he/she can now only make high-pitch and animalistic-sounding chitterings, hissings, and mews), age regression (becoming a young creature to fit his/her new life), height regression (shrinking from an average 5.7-6 foot height to only 3 feet and 4.5 inches tall), and mind/mental change (with the reader's personalities and memories being completely replaced with Grimmchild's personality and memories, despite the reader's best efforts of fighting his/her new personality and memories, making the reader completely forget he was a human, even forgetting that the transformation that just occurred seconds ago, and only remembered ever being a male entity (more specifically an insectoid creature) and always having been named Grimmchild, who is a child to the Troupe Master Grimm (who is also known simply as Grimm)). The transformation is permanent (meaning it is forever) and is completely irreversible. For Grimm's appearance's (the one who transforms the reader), he is a tall (10 foot tall) and slender, insectoid and humanoid dark being covered by a multicolored cloak, with a gray exterior and a red interior. His face is pale with red eyes (as well as having no ears and no nose), and a hidden mouth (unless he is screeching), and underneath his cloak, his body is scaled and red. As the Nightmare King, Grimm's body turns entirely red, with his cloak having a maroon color. His face remains pale and his limbs remain black. In his staggered form, Grimm resembles the Grimmchild's third form, only his eyes are glowing red and the rest of his body is black. For Grimm's powers/abilities, he has manipulation, charisma, agility, teleportation, summoning bats, flight, and pyrokinesis. For Grimm's personality, he, throughout all of his interactions with the Knight, remains polite and respectful, bowing in shows of respect to them on several occasions. He is dedicated to the part he plays in the Ritual, and has a flair for theatrics, keeping with his persona of the leader of a traveling troupe. He views battle as a form of dancing and in combat shall unleash moves that cause his always nearby audience to cheer. His respect extends to the Godseeker, for when summoned to do battle with the Knight before her, he shall again bow towards her. Dreamnailing him shows Grimm is in fact delighted to be in Godhome, viewing it as a pleasure to take part in the Godseeker's quest to find the strongest creature in Hallownest. For the male Grimmchild's appearance (after the reader turned into him), he is a small (3.5 foot tall) and youthful, insectoid and humanoid dark being. His torso has a silver-grey chitinous shell, which his torso resembles a chubby body of a worm (while he is not chubby and just looks that way). He also has no arms and legs (unlike his parent Grimm), so he cannot stand, walk, nor run, but to make up for the lack of these limbs, he has four thin, black, ribbon-like wings (where the humanoid arms would be) to help him flutter and fly around (he can sit and lay down despite being unable to stand, walk, or run). His face is pale with red eyes (as well as having no ears and no nose), and a hidden mouth (unless he is screeching). He is able to find the location of the flames to help his parent (Grimm) and the ritual (which Grimm wants for his child). For the male Grimmchild's personality, he is a sweet, gentle, and playful being who truly loves Grimm (his parent), just as Grimm truly loves him, and as such, he always feels safe with his parent (Grimm) near or next to him to keep him safe. Like his parent (Grimm), he wants flames for the ritual to help his parent (Grimm) and the ritual (which Grimm wants for his child). The story is that the human reader is minding his/her own business walking to his/her home at night, but then a tall and slender insectoid humanoid being came to him/her, startling the human reader before he/she asks the creature on what and who is he. The being then tells the him/her that he is Grimm (also known as Troupe Master Grimm), and he is here in the human world to bring his child back, before he releases powerful sparks of magic directly at the reader, causing the reader to feel tingly as he/she starts to completely transform into Grimmchild. Now scared (and unable to speak), the now-definitely male (if the reader was female before the transformation) Grimmchild tries to run away, but due to his new proportions and newfound lack of legs or arms (not even stubs of his arms or legs exist anymore), he is utterly helpless. He then suddenly starts remembering himself as Grimmchild (even remembering that he has always been cared for by the being that he now views as his father), making him scared about his memories and personalities being replaced by those of a creature who isn't human, before he started to fly (albeit clumsily due to him just starting to remember how to fly with his four ribbon-like wings he now has, or rather always had). His former human self (which is now completely gone) and the human world around the reader becomes more and more unfamiliar to him, due to his changing memories (making him no longer able to recognize the human world he once knew), or rather he was never been human and he has never been to the human world until now. Traumatized (and unable to speak despite still understanding words and a language he once spoke), he backs away from Grimm, but not long before Grimm gently picks/scoops him up (due to the reader's now-tiny size, who is basically cat-sized (although not really the size of a cat) compared with Grimm) and Grimm then hugs him before Grimm tenderly pats/pets/strokes him on his head, shushing him affectionately and telling him that his human self wasn't real (Grimmchild was never a human and his human life/self was only a dream) and Grimm tells him that everything is alright and that he (Grim) is here to protect him (Grimmchild), making Grimmchild (formerly the human reader) feel truly safe and loved with Grimm around, and he now truly loves his real/true father (Grimm), and he realizes that Grimm always was his parent (making Grimmchild realize that Grimmchild himself had always been Grimmchild and a child to Grimm, so that his supposed life as a human was not real and was just a dream). After that, Grimmchild (formerly the human reader he mistaken himself to be) gently mews at Grimm out of curiosity and questioning (without words) with a mewing sound, instinctively telling Grimm on where are they (Grimm and Grimmchild) and where are they going (since the human world is completely unfamiliar to Grimmchild, as he was never in the human world before), before Grimm (with affection and content/happiness for his child Grimmchild (even chuckling gently) and completely understanding his child even without his child speaking like him) tells him that they are now in the human world, after traveling from their old world to the human world (where they will stay), and they are going to find flames for a ritual, before both Grimm and his child (Grimmchild) went off to find flames for a ritual for Grimm's child (Grimmchild). There should also be quotes from the characters in this story (including quotes from the reader) so we know what they're saying and what they're thinking. Also, it is a POV reader story, so it should not be in an author's point of view (my, I, mine, etc), and it should be from the point of view of the reader (you, your, etc).
Response: The night city air is electric with the pulse of distant headlights and the quiet hush of your own footsteps—at least, at first. Each step home is familiar, each breath drawing in the cool hush of the evening, until an impossible shadow at the curb halts you in your tracks. You freeze. He towers above the street. Taller than any man, slender and elegant, shrouded in a cloak that shimmers unsettlingly, charcoal and crimson with shifting, flame-like patterns. His face glows bone-white in the gloom, red eyes glinting over where a mouth should be—but isn't. Limbs that move with a dancer’s flair, brushing the night air in a silent, approving bow. Your voice stumbles out. "Who… What are you?" you stammer, the world suddenly thin beneath your sneakers. A deep, polite voice—both menacing and gentle—gently graces your ears: **“I am Grimm, Troupe Master of the Nightmare's flame. I've come to reclaim what is mine—my dear child. You, little one, have wandered long enough.”** Before panic can root your feet in concrete, arcs of vivid, burning magic leap from his fingers. They dance through your skin, through sinew and bone, with an electric tingle that wakes every nerve. Your voice rises, partway through a scream— But the sound snags, shrivels, morphs. Your fingers shrink, curl, vanish. Arms and legs retract into your torso until they're gone—no more limbs to reach, to run, or to resist. The world grows: buildings tilt and stretch as you shrink, perspective ballooning until streetlights are looming beacons. Feet melt away, shoes sloughing off unlaced behind you, clothing slipping off in heaps as your body condenses, buffed and warped. Your waist swells, chitinous, silvery-grey, compact—compactness not born of flesh but of shell and dream. You try to shout— "Pl-please! Wait! You have the wrong person! I—!" But all that escapes your lips is a high, trembling chitter—an animalistic cry, thin and urgent, like a scared hatchling, not a plea for help in human words. Your tongue twists, mouth too small and secret to ever form language again. You pitifully attempt to crawl, but with neither hands nor feet, you flop helplessly, squirming in frantic, undignified arcs on the sidewalk. Panic crackles through your brain— **I need to get away! I need to—!** Your thoughts crumble as foreign sensations bleed in: the flicker of strange warmth in your chest, the pull toward distant, flickering points—**flames?**—that only you can sense. Memories unfurl, crowding your mind. The city dissolves into abstract, unrecognizable lines and shadows as the memory of lightless caverns and comforting, burning eyes nestles in your heart. **No!** You try desperately to cling to your name, to the memory of who you were, but it’s vanishing like morning mist. In its place is the sound of a lullaby, the memory of gentle, powerful wings holding you, the wordless comfort of a parent’s presence—his presence. The world flattens, your vision washed with the watercolor glow of an animated dream. You flutter, unsteady, as instinct takes hold of your strange, feathery, ribbon-like wings—four of them, where arms should be. Up, up you float, clumsy and wobbling, confusion warping the cityscape to a place unfit for your new self. Your heart pounds with terror, fluttering chitter after chitter trembling in your chest. You stare up at the looming figure. His cloak is vast and sheltering. His glowing red eyes gaze at you—not with hunger, but with gentle understanding. You draw back, mewling softly, memory fraying further. **Why can’t I remember where I am? Why does everything feel like a dream? Who… who am I?** You try to form the words— *Who am I…? Wh-what is happening?* —but only a pitiful mew escapes, pitched higher and higher, lost and trembling. Yet Grimm kneels, his huge hands careful and gentle, and scoops you up with a dancer’s grace. Your shivering body is dwarfed in his palms, but you feel no fear, only a trembling confusion as he gathers you close to his heart, enveloping you in his cloak’s fire-striped warmth. He hushes you softly, stroking your head with unexpected affection. **“Hush now, dearest flame. That was but a dream. You are my child—my little Grimmchild. You are safe, always, next to me.”** Your mind struggles for a moment more—shreds of names, faces, places—all slip through your fingers like ash. Yes, you realize with soft, trembling certainty, you have never been anything else. The notion of “human” is strange, alien—a lie told in a dream, already dissolving under your father’s caress. **He is my father. Grimm. He has always cared for me. I am Grimmchild. I always have been. There was no other self but this.** You snuggle closer, chittering in a gentler, curious mew. The world is vast and alien—what is this place? You turn your round, shining red eyes up at him, voicing a quiet mew of confusion and question. Grimm chuckles, the sound like velvet smoke. **“Curious, are you? We have wandered from our world, child of flame. This is a new stage, grand and strange. We’ll find our way together—seeking flames for the dance, the Ritual that binds us. You are my heart’s delight.”** You flutter your wings, comforting in their strangeness, and trill a happy mew. The shadowed city is still unfamiliar, but you feel no fear. In your father’s arms, you know the Ritual, the flames, and the road ahead. You are Grimmchild. You are loved, safe—and eager to see this new world with the only family you have ever known. Together, you turn from the street and disappear into the night, Grimm’s cloak swallowing you in its fiery folds as you begin the search for new flames—father and child, lost and found, dancing into the unknown.
Post your own comment or use AI: